Arden of Faversham is the first example of a new genre in the history of English drama, the domestic tragedy. Before this play, tragedies had always been about characters of high social rank—kings and nobility. In contrast, the domestic tragedy features characters lower in the social scale. The historical Thomas Arden, for example, although he was a wealthy landowner and the chief citizen of the small town of Faversham, was not a nobleman and appears to have gained his local importance from hard work, a successful career, and the good fortune that came from cultivating relationships with those who had more wealth and power than he did.

Domestic tragedies presented realistic scenes from ordinary life. The plot usually centered on a murder and was based on an actual crime in recent history that had been recorded in a chronicle, a ballad, or pamphlet. Domestic tragedy evolved...